The Deaths of Ian Stone 2007

This NY-based studio collective consists of Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), Joel Hamilton (Sparklehorse, Elvis Costello), Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, They Might Be Giants), and Carla Kihlstedt (Tom Waits, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum). With guests Carla Bozulich, Megan Reilly, Jon Langford, David Thomas, Mike Watt, and Tom Waits, their debut bills itself as "a tribute to the American Rust Belt". They paint a haunting modern-day portrait of cities like Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, and Detroit; places that once were the definition of American motivation, progress, and industry, but now are home to ruined monuments of a bygone era. The sonic landscape is painted with scraping, swirling guitars, soaring string arrangements, rupturing bass, and plate-shattering drums.

Before she’s truly freed from the shackles of EMI, Joss Stone must endure one final indignity: that standard end-of-contract ploy, a greatest-hits album, covering her six years with the label. Every one of her 12 singles for the label is here, with the Jamie Hartman duet “Stalemate” – originally released on Ben’s Brother’s 2009 album – added as a concluding track. If this doesn’t dig deep, it nevertheless hits all the highlights – her White Stripes cover “Fell in Love with a Boy,” her Top Ten U.K. hit “You Had Me,” “Don’t Cha Wanna Ride,” her only charting U.S. single “Tell Me 'Bout It,” the Common duet “Tell Me What We’re Gonna Do Now” – drawing a picture of the decade when Stone was always on the cusp of stardom yet never quite truly there. As introductions go, it’s a solid one, capturing her potential and promise, alternating between singles frustrating and fun.

This collection features selections from eight of bass player Edgar Meyer's most popular albums made for Sony. It includes mostly Meyer's own compositions written for himself and friends, as well as his arrangements of folk pieces and transcriptions of classical works, and is an excellent introduction to the diversity of his interests and the range of his skills as a performer and composer.

Joan Osborne set the world on fire for a few minutes back in the '90s with her reading of Eric Bazilian's "One of Us," a single that dominated the charts for the better part of a year and continues to get radio play. The album, Relish, sold into the millions, making everybody and her brother (especially the folks at her label Interscope) think she was going to be a superstar. It didn't work out that way. Despite being one of the greatest R&B and soul singers around (before she played in the big leagues she issued a few independent recordings on her own Womanly Hips label that offer stellar proof of this), she got her rep as a pop singer; worse yet, as part of the '90s wave of female acts who dominated the charts for a little while and was a part of the first Lilith Fair, while singing pop songs at half power no less. She recorded one more album for Interscope (which is owned by Universal).